


Listen Here Mr. Bartender

by smokesforsterek



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Bartender!Derek, M/M, Misunderstandings, Strangers, but not really, cradle rocking, stiles might be dating an older man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 16:13:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7059931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smokesforsterek/pseuds/smokesforsterek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles stumbles into a bar and bares his sole to Derek, but the details Stiles shares make Derek think Stiles is in a complicated relationship with an older man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Listen Here Mr. Bartender

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LilChives](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilChives/gifts).



> I have no intention of adding to this. 
> 
> Special thanks to [lilchives](http://lilchives.tumblr.com) for always letting me vent and probably hearing all of these at one point or another. 
> 
> This is kinda of a personal fic for me so I'm not going to say to much more. Enjoy!

The pub is pretty quiet tonight. Spare the jukebox in the corner, the grill in the kitchen behind him and the senseless murmur of too many voices talking at once. No one even notices the door swing open with a new patron.

Derek looks up from his spot behind the bar too look at the new comer, and to watch where he sits. He really doesn’t want to leave his counter to serve the dude at a table. The kid looks young, probably barely old enough to be here. He has a slim frame, but he has a nice build on him, it’s slight and not immediately apparent under the ill fitting plaid over shirt he’s wearing, but the tight t shirt under it leaves little to the imagination. His eyes are heavy with dark circles looming under his eyes that Derek hoped would normally twinkle with amazing brown pupils.

The newcomer takes a seat at the bar top closest to the entrance.

“Scotch please,” his voice is rough, like he’s been yelling. A slim hands come together to rest on the counter. The kid’s thumbs starts to rub the back of his other hand as Derek picks up a glass from the sink, a clean towel, and moves closer.

“ID?” Derek says, carefully running the towel over the outside of the glass before dipping it to dry the inside. The bartender’s eyes never leaving the new comer’s.

Brown Eyes looks outrageously annoyed as he reaches to his back pocket, presumably for his wallet.

“Here,” he slams the driver’s license on the counter so Derek can see it. “Happy?” All Derek can do is pull a tight smile across his face.

The ID says the kid is 25, which kind of surprises Derek, but justifies the guy’s annoyance. He must be carded a lot. Derek tries to read the name, but it looks like someone key smashed instead of copied his name down correctly.

“Thanks,” Derek drops some ice in the glass and sets the now dry glass in front of him. Derek reaches behind him and grabs some scotch off the shelf. The guy folds in on himself, both elbows on the counter with his right hand up to his mouth. His knuckles are bleeding, and he’s biting a nail. It looks as though he’s muttering to himself, angry little expressions flick all over his face as he stared at nothing in particular.

“Do you want some ice for that?” Derek starts to pour the amber liquid into the glass and slowly raises it up for a high pour before he thinks that no one in this bar cares for dramatics.

“Huh?” Brown Eyes breaks out of his little trance and looks at Derek.

“Ice. For your hand?” Derek finishes his pour and sets the bottle down on his side of the counter nearby, the guy seems like he’ll be here a while.

“Oh, ummm,” he looks at his hand as if he didn’t even notice it’s bleeding, “yeah, sure.”

“Should I worry about the other guy coming in here and causing trouble?” Derek takes a new dishrag off the pile and pulls a couple ice cubes out of the ice bin. The bartender reaches it out to the guy.

“The ‘other guy’ is a wall a few blocks away. You don’t have to worry,” Brown Eyes takes a swig of his scotch and takes the makeshift ice pack from Derek. “Thanks.” He puts the ice on his hand, as the rest of his drink slips into his mouth and disappears.

The two taps on the counter singling another don’t surprise Derek at all. Derek obeys the request and leaves to serve Marv at the other end of the bar.

Brown Eyes has a couple more drinks in him when his quiet mumblings are loud enough for Derek to hear.

“I just…. I just don’t get it. He fucking said he would leave her,” his words were slurred but Derek can practically speak drunkard, “She’s fucking evil. Did you know,” he looks up from where he is staring at his glass up to Derek, “she steals his money? How fucked up is that?!”

Derek puts a glass of water in front of the guy instead of refilling his tumbler.

“He promised me,” his brown eyes looked down at the glass of water like it held the answer to his questions, “He fucking promise me. You don’t break a promise like that! Fuck!” The glass of water falls over on the counter and Derek is there immediately to start cleaning it up.

Some of the other customers at the counter look over to the kid who is at least 20 years younger than all of them.

Derek has no idea what he could be talking about, so he just refills his water halfway and let’s him lament in peace.

“This isn’t fair to me,” Derek still soaking up the water that lingers on the counter, “like, it was me and him for so long. Then this bitch came into his life,” he takes a sip of water. “‘I love her,’” his voice goes deep like he’s mimicking whomever he’s talking about, Derek starts to assume this is about his boyfriend. “So he marries this Disney villain right? And he completely forgets about me.”

The guy grows quiet, Derek can’t help but pity the guy. His boyfriend obviously broke his heart by marrying this other girl out of nowhere. Derek pours him another glass, it sounds like he needs it.

“I mean, I get it, she makes him happy. But what about me?” his words get more slurred with the addition of new alcohol. “I love him so much, and she isn’t going to keep him from me. I just don’t want her around when we’re together.”

Derek thinks to himself that it’s a little weird that this guy is with his boyfriend while his boyfriend is with his wife, maybe their friends?

“He promised me,” tears start to fill his beautiful eyes, “But that was like, ten years ago.” Another glass slides down his throat as he tilts his head back, the ice crashes down on his face. “And here we fucking are. He’s still married to that horrible women, and I’m in a bar, drunk, after punching a wall in his house, because he still wouldn’t sign the god damned divorce papers,” his laugh is false and filled with sorry. Derek really feels for the guy.

With some quick math, Derek realizes that the guy Brown Eyes must be talking about is older than him. He can’t make sense of being in a relationship with someone who has been married for ten years unless he is older, the guy being 15 years ago. Brown Eyes grows quiet, Derek makes the rounds and refills the drinks along the bar top before getting back to Brown Eyes. “They never leave their wives dude.”

“I don’t really give a fuck, because I should be more important than her. We were fine before he and we will be even better without her,” the ice had been forgotten on the counter, Derek picks it up to put it in the sink. “It was just for so long, just me and him, ya know? Then she popped in out of nowhere and took him from me,” tears start to stream down his face, Derek has never felt so  bad for one of his patrons before. “Even after he found out she was no good he would come up with the most  asinine excuses, ‘she’s going through some rough stuff’, ‘she just hasn’t had time to find a job’, ‘she needs me Stiles’, it’s all bullshit.”

Stiles must be Brown Eyes’ name. It is easier than the mess he saw on his license.

“Then fuck him,” Derek says,  shrugging his arms over his chest. “If he hasn’t left her in the past ten years, he’s not going to leave her. You can’t keep this up anymore, it’s not healthy. You deserve someone who is going to be with you 100%. Not only when it’s convenient for them. You deserve someone better.” He rarely gets involved in his patron’s problems, but this guy is so down, and Derek kind of hated seeing such a pretty face so sad.

“I wish I could, but he’s all I have left. If I leave I’ll be leaving my entire life behind,” Stiles’ words were slurred so much, but Derek knew exactly what he is saying.

“He’s not all you have. It seems hard to leave someone who is such a big part of your life for so long, you seem like a cool enough dude, you could probably get over this jackass pretty quick once you leave him.”

Derek felt so sorry this this Stiles guy, his boyfriend had really fucked him over. Stiles seemed convinced that there is no life without this guy, and Derek can’t comprehend what that must be like for him.

“I love him too much, I can’t just leave him. I’ve thought about it. When I went off to college, I told him I wouldn’t let him pay for it, that I needed to be on my own, that I couldn’t depend on him forever.”

With each new thing Derek learned about this asshole his confusion only grew. If he could afford to pay for college for Stiles, he must be a bit older than Derek had originally thought. Derek’s head is starting to hurt because of Stiles’ problems, he can only imagine having to deal with a jackass boyfriend like this for years.

“You just need to break up with him. Don’t even give him an explanation. He’s not going to leave his wife, they never do. If you still believe he will, you’re living a pipe dream.” Derek takes the glass from him, Stiles makes grabby hands for it but doesn’t put up too much of a fight.

“You’re right, he won’t leave her. Because even though she’s the devil, he loves her, and she makes him happy.” Stiles fold in on himself again. “I just, I just wish my dad would side with me on this.”

And the whole room stops, even Marv at the end of the bar stops his sip midway through to look at Stiles.

“Yo- your dad?” Derek eyes Stiles a little, confusion overwhelming him before settling in understanding. “Your dad.” Of course he had been talking about his dad, it all makes sense now, the 10 year marriage, the paying for college, frankly it relieved Derek a little to know this guy isn’t in a horrible affair with a married man.

“Yeah, well. I should get home.” He gets up and quickly loses his balance.

“Do you need me to call a cab?” Derek asks while Stiles regains his balance.

“Suuuuuure,” Stiles’ drunkenness is more apparent than it was a moment ago. Derek reaches for the landline and phone out to a cab service requesting a cab for Stiles. The pub’s policy is that they’ll pick up the fair if you take a cab home, so Derek passes the pub’s information to the call center worker. Stiles just kind of lingers at the door, his hands stuffed into his pockets.

Derek makes his rounds at the bar again, Marv tells Derek quietly that he wasn’t expecting Stiles’ boyfriend troubles to be about his dad. Derek pokes fun at Marv’s need to know all the gossip, he is almost as bad as the Stevenson Sisters who come in on Friday’s to let Derek in on all the hot gossip in town.

The phone rings.

“Your cab is here,” Stiles lolls his head up and nods with pursed lips.

“Cool, I’ll see you around-” He raised his pointer finger to Derek like he is trying to remember his name.

“Derek.”

“Derek.” Stiles says, a smile growing on his face. He walks over to the bar and sticks his hand out, “I’m Stilesssss.” Their hands meet and they shake a little before Stiles releases and saunters out of the bar.

Derek wipes down the section of bar that Stiles vacated and smiles to himself. In his hand is a business card from the Sheriff’s department, with the name on Stiles’ driver’s license.

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo, did you like it? Comments and Kudos are much appreciated!
> 
> Come chill with me on [tumblr.](http://smokesforsterek.tumblr.com)


End file.
